By: Liv Gardner

Forty-thousand. 

That’s the number of questions you had to answer correctly on the practice site of Battle of the Books to become the “top quizzer” in the state of North Carolina in 2012. 

Lucky for me, that year I answered over 43,000. 

Every night of fourth grade, my 10-year-old legs would ball into a seat at the kitchen table after dinner, listening and responding as my mother asked me questions about the list of 18 books that I had read over and over and over again to prepare for competition. 

“In what book does a boy want to hear about islands, porpoises, glaciers and mountains?” asked my mother. 

“‘The Graveyard Book’ by Neil Gailman,” I replied. 

“In what book does a girl hesitate before drinking?” 

“‘Tuck Everlasting’ by Natalie Babbitt.” 

The practice went on for hours daily. Hundreds of inquisitive bullets fired themselves at the arsenal of information locked inside my head. 

If I woke up the next morning and someone had surpassed me on the leaderboard, I would add an extra 200 questions onto my practice for the next night. 

I was 10 and I was tired. 

But I had to do it. 

I had to win. 

I had to be the best. 

And I was.

It felt good — but for far less time than it took me to answer those 43,000 questions in the first place. 

What started out as fun and games had slowly evolved into an insatiable need to be on top, a need that 10 years later I am battling at full force. 

Now, at 20 years old, I find myself in the seat of the kitchen table of my college dorm. I don’t need to ask myself 43,000 questions to be satisfied anymore. I just need to answer one. 

Mom, have I done enough to finally be the perfect child? 

*** 

I’ve spent my entire life on “the path.” 

I don’t know much about said “path,” just that I don’t know exactly where it’s going and that I never remember choosing to be on it in the first place. 

My parents have sworn that it’s going to lead me somewhere great. Every other day my mom would say to me some variation of “If you can just stay on this path…” or “We’ve worked so hard to get you on the path to where you’re going….” 

We can’t forget my personal favorite: “So many parents don’t push their kids to be on the path that you’re on. We’ve done that and if you can just stay on it…” 

These quotes served as the daily reminder that I couldn’t fuck up. One misstep and my life would be over. 

For as long as I can remember, I did whatever it took to stay within the boundaries, learning the rules of what would supposedly keep me going toward whatever my parents prophesied for my future. 

After a few years, the parameters were clear. 

1. I couldn’t make anything lower than an A. 

2. Quitting sports, classes or hobbies wasn’t an option. 

3. If I wasn’t taking home some type of individual award, then I wasn’t working hard enough. 

4. Free time needed to be filled. If there was time for me to watch TV, there was time for me to read another book, pick up another sport or find another hobby.

I grew up knowing that if I stuck to these rules, then I stuck to “the path.” 

By the end of my high school career, I had a 4.6 GPA and had made As in every single class since Kindergarten. I had done research with Pfeiffer University as a freshman and had published a separate study as a senior. I was a tri-sport athlete, lettering 10 times in four years and receiving several All-Conference awards. I was a part of the National Honor Society, Spanish National Honor Society, chess club, captain of the mock trial team, started and coached a middle school mock trial team, volunteered with my church and even served as student body president. 

For all of my parents’ Facebook friends who were on the receiving end of my accomplishments, I was the perfect child. 

For my parents, I was the byproduct of their hard work. 

For the 18-year-old me, I was the daughter my mom and dad had thrown onto their potter’s wheel, splashing with water and kneading with their hands until I was the perfect vase or bowl that they could then throw whatever they wanted into. 

But it didn’t matter how many times I spun in circles or how many times they tried to throw me into the kiln, there was always some bump or crack that kept me from being perfect in their eyes, especially my mother’s. 

Everything I have ever done has been to make my mom proud, to make her feel like I wasn’t some failure, to make her feel like I was worth it. 

I have always wanted her to see that it didn’t matter how hard she pushed me, I wasn’t going to break. 

But as much as my mom and I would like to forget, when you go full throttle, you’re eventually going to run out of gas. 

At 18, my tank was empty. 

I was running off four to five hours of sleep on a good night and woke every morning to the one person that weighed on my shoulders more than any test, game or assignment: my mom. 

“You’re not wearing that are you? It makes your hips look big and you aren’t allowed to wear white after Labor day.” 

“If you would stop procrastinating, then you would get to bed before 3 a.m..”

“Maybe if you slept more you wouldn’t be so mean all of the time.” 

“One of my customer’s kids said that there was this club at your school. Why haven’t you joined it yet?” 

“Why in the world would you cut your hair off? It looked so much better before!” “You wanna talk about how skinny your friends are, maybe you shouldn’t be snacking as soon as you get home.” 

With every comment about my clothes, question about my weight, or push to join something else on her list, the more energy I lost. 

I was depressed. I was anxious. I was exhausted. 

I was 18-years-old and I’d never been to a high school football game. I’d never been to a party or snuck in or out of the house after a late night out. I’d never skipped class or cheered in the student section for our basketball team. I’d almost never even been home before 6 p.m. on a regular school day. 

I had cried myself to sleep in fear of making a B. I had weighed myself daily for my entire life that led to an eating disorder my sophomore year of college. I had changed my clothes every single time she made a comment about them just to gain her approval. I had joined every club offered by my high school, except for the quiz bowl team, in hopes of proving to her that I was the best. 

I had given up everything normal in pursuit of perfection – her perfection. 

*** 

Years later, I now look back at “the path” I’ve traveled. 

I see things to be proud of and accomplishments I could have never imagined. I see a mom who loved me and who gave me all the support she could. I see good intentions. 

Yet if I look closely through all of the successes, I see a struggling 20-year-old girl whose formed characteristics were the byproducts of her parents, both their decisions and the incessant goal of pleasing them. 

Now, as I’m about to graduate college, I’m sad, I’m angry and I’m tired. 

I’m sad because I never got to experience the normalcy of just being a kid without a care in the world. I spent my earliest years working to be the best, to be what my parents wanted me to be.

I’m angry because I’m in my third year of college and when I call my mom to update her on my life, I’m still met with the same quotes and questions from high school. I still feel like I can never do enough to make her truly satisfied. 

I’m tired because for 20 years I’ve traveled on a path that I didn’t choose to be on with an end nowhere in sight. 

I love my mom. I really do. I’m grateful for her support and all that she has given me. I’m thankful I even have a mom who was present in my life. 

But I don’t think I will ever be able to make her happy. I don’t think I will ever be able to be her perfect child. 

And that’s OK. Perfection is unrealistic, and I know that now. I can’t change the path I’ve traveled, but I can choose the one that I walk today, tomorrow and the next day. 

I have the option to live the life that I wanted my entire childhood, a life of freedom and free will, a life where I dress confidently, eat mindlessly, enjoy school and stay up all night making memories, not doing homework. I have the option to live a life where I make decisions to please myself – not my mother. 

I’m gonna take that option.